Who this is for: Sales Managers, BD Leads, and Recruiters who want to identify where deals are slowing down and take action.
The Deals - Days in Stage report gives you a single view of your deal pipeline's velocity - how long deals are spending in each stage, and whether that's getting better or worse. This article walks you through navigating the report, reading what it shows, and using it to make decisions.
Step 1: Open the report
Go to Reports in the left navigation.
Click Sales Reports.
Select Deals - Days in Stage.
The report opens with This Quarter as the default date range, no filters, and no group by applied.
Step 2: Read the data table
The report loads as a pivot table showing your deal pipeline stages.
Here's what each part means:
Stage columns: each column is one pipeline stage. By default, stages are ordered from highest to lowest average days (so the most problematic stage is always on the left).
Average time spent in stage: the number in each cell is the average calendar days deals spent in that stage, across all deals created in your selected date range that have already left that stage.
% change indicator: the number in brackets below each avg days value shows how that stage is trending vs. the equivalent prior period:
🔴 Red with ↑ = deals are taking longer in this stage than last period. This stage is slowing down.
🟢 Green with ↓ = deals are moving faster through this stage than last period. Things are improving.
-- = no comparison data available for the prior period.
Example of what you're looking at:
Your "Proposal" stage shows 14 days with a red +28.5% indicator. That means deals are currently spending 14 days in Proposal on average, and that's 28.5% longer than the same period last quarter. That's a signal worth investigating.
Step 3: Adjust the date range
The date range filter controls which deals appear in the report. It filters by deal creation date, not by when deals moved through stages.
Click the date preset dropdown (top right, shows "This Quarter" by default).
Select a preset: This Quarter, Last Quarter, This Month, Last Month, or a Custom range.
When to use each preset:
This Quarter: best for your current BD review cycle. Shows deals you're actively working now.
Last Quarter: useful for retrospectives and coaching conversations.
Custom range: use when you want to analyze a specific campaign period or compare a non-standard window.
If you see very little data or lots of "--" values, your date range may not cover when your deals were created. Try extending it.
Step 4: Drill into a stage
When a stage looks slow, click on the avg days value in the table to see exactly which deals are dragging the average up.
Click any cell value in the stage row.
A sidesheet opens showing all deals that contributed a completed stretch in that stage during your selected date range and active filters.
Each row in the sidesheet shows:
Deal Name (linked; click to open the deal directly)
Associated Company
Days in Stage; the specific number of days that deal spent in this stage
Deal Owner
Deal Created Date
If a deal passed through the same stage twice (a regression), it appears twice, once per stretch.
Close the sidesheet to return to the report with your filters and state intact.
Step 5: Use filters and group by (optional)
To narrow down or break out the data further:
Filter by pipeline - select one or more pipelines using the Pipeline filter to focus on a specific deal type. See [Filtering the Report by Pipeline, Owner, and More] for full details.
Group by Deal Owner or Team - apply a Group By to compare stage velocity across team members. See [Grouping the Report by Deal Owner, Team, or Manager].
A typical Sales Manager workflow
Here's how a Sales Manager might use this report during a weekly pipeline review:
Open the report, leave it on This Quarter.
Scan the table left to right. The leftmost stage (highest avg days) is the current bottleneck.
Check the % change indicator. Red and growing? It's getting worse. Red but shrinking? It's a known issue that's improving.
Click into the highest-avg stage. Review the deal list. Are the same deal owners appearing repeatedly? Is it a specific deal type or company size?
Take the insight to the next 1:1 or team meeting: "Our Proposal stage is now averaging 14 days, up 28% from last quarter. Here are the 5 deals sitting in it the longest."